My daughter, who is 13, asked me the other day if I missed her being younger. Don’t I miss her being tiny? she asked me. I absolutely don’t. I have enjoyed every single age that she has been and have never looked back. (Of course, she’s a teenager now, so we’ll see how that continues to hold up.)
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Debbie Bosworth
is a certified farmgirl at heart. She’s happily married to her beach bum Yankee husband of 20 years. She went from career gal to being a creative homeschooling mom for two of her biggest blessings and hasn’t looked back since. Debbie left her lifelong home in the high desert of Northern Nevada 10 years ago and washed up on the shore of America’s hometown, Plymouth, MA, where she and her family are now firmly planted. They spend part of each summer in a tiny, off–grid beach cottage named “The Sea Horse.”
“I found a piece of my farmgirl heart when I discovered MaryJanesFarm. Suddenly, everything I loved just made more sense! I enjoy unwinding at the beach, writing, gardening, and turning yard-sale furniture into ‘Painted Ladies’ I’m passionate about living a creative life and encouraging others to ‘make each day their masterpiece.’”
Rebekah Teal
is a “MaryJane Farmgirl” who lives in a large metropolitan area. She is a lawyer who has worked in both criminal defense and prosecution. She has been a judge, a business woman and a stay-at-home mom. In addition to her law degree, she has a Masters of Theological Studies.
“Mustering up the courage to do the things you dream about,” she says, “is the essence of being a MaryJane Farmgirl.” Learning to live more organically and closer to nature is Rebekah’s current pursuit. She finds strength and encouragement through MaryJane’s writings, life, and products. And MaryJane’s Farmgirl Connection provides her a wealth of knowledge from true-blue farmgirls.
Cathi Belcher
an old-fashioned farmgirl with a pioneer spirit, lives in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. As a “lifelong learner” in the “Live-Free-or-Die” state, she fiercely values self-reliance, independence, freedom, and fresh mountain air. Married to her childhood sweetheart of 40+ years (a few of them “uphill climbs”), she’s had plenty of time to reinvent herself. From museum curator, restaurant owner, homeschool mom/conference speaker, to post-and-beam house builder and entrepreneur, she’s also a multi-media artist, with an obsession for off-grid living and alternative housing. Cathi owns and operates a 32-room mountain lodge. Her specialty has evolved to include “hermit hospitality” at her rustic cabin in the mountains, where she offers weekend workshops of special interest to women.
“Mountains speak to my soul, and farming is an important part of my heritage. I want to pass on my love of these things to others through my writing. Living in the mountains has its own particular challenges, but I delight in turning them into opportunities from which we can all learn and grow.”
Dori Troutman
Dori Troutman is the daughter of second generation cattle ranchers in New Mexico. She grew up working and playing on the ranch that her grandparents homesteaded in 1928. That ranch, with the old adobe home, is still in the family today. Dori and her husband always yearned for a ranch of their own. That dream came true when they retired to the beautiful green rolling hills of Tennessee. Truly a cattleman’s paradise!
Dori loves all things farmgirl and actually has known no other life but that. She loves to cook, craft, garden, and help with any and all things on their cattle farm.
Mary Murray
describes herself as a goat charmer, chicken whisperer, bee maven, and farmers’ market baker renovating an 1864 farmhouse on an Ohio farm. With a degree in Design, Mary says small-town auctions and country road barn sales "always make my heart skip a beat thinking about what I could create or design out of what I’ve seen.”
Rooted in the countryside, she likes simple things and old ways … gardening, preserving the harvest, cooking, baking, and all things home. While you might find her selling baked goods from the farm’s milkhouse, teaching herself to play the fiddle, or sprucing up a vintage camper named Maizy, you will always find her in an apron!
Mary says, “I’m happiest with the simple country pleasures … an old farmhouse, too many animals, a crackling fire, books to read, and the sound of laughter … these make life just perfect.”
Alexandra Wilson
is a budding rural farmgirl living in Palmer, the agricultural seat of Alaska. Alex is a graduate student at Alaska Pacific University pursuing an M.S. in Outdoor and Environmental Education. She lives and works on the university’s 700 acre environmental education center, Spring Creek Farm. When Alex has time outside of school, she loves to rock climb, repurpose found objects, cross-country ski on the hay fields, travel, practice yoga, and cook with new-fangled ingredients.
Alex grew up near the Twin Cities and went to college in Madison, Wisconsin—both places where perfectly painted barns and rolling green farmland are just a short drive away. After college, she taught at a rural middle school in South Korea where she biked past verdant rice paddies and old women selling home-grown produce from sidewalk stoops. She was introduced to MaryJanesFarm after returning, and found in it what she’d been searching for—a group of incredible women living their lives in ways that benefit their families, their communities, and the greater environment. What an amazing group of farmgirls to be a part of!
Nicole Christensen
Suburban Farmgirl Nicole Christensen calls herself a “vintage enthusiast”. Born and raised in Texas, she has lived most of her life in the picturesque New England suburbs of Connecticut, just a stone’s throw from New York State. An Advanced Master Gardener, she has gardened since childhood, in several states and across numerous planting zones. In addition, she teaches knitting classes, loves to preserve, and raises backyard chickens.
Married over thirty years to her Danish-born sweetheart, Nicole has worked in various fields, been a world-traveler, an entrepreneur and a homemaker, but considers being mom to her now-adult daughter her greatest accomplishment. Loving all things creative, Nicole considers her life’s motto to be “Bloom where you are planted”.
Guess what? … I look forward to your posts so much they are the first thing I read when I open my emails and see one down in the list of unopened mail. Thanks for all your time and photos.
Yeas all around – pumpkin looks superb, training will be a good thing, silly long haired cowboy (my son is too), ah ‘real’ corn, not much reading done around here either, maybe this winter, we too are getting Fallish already about a month early but the report is that we will be colder n snowier this year than normal, ok, AT oh I hope you get to do it, always wanted to but I will enjoy your experience, Farmer Teal n Lucille look real good together – bet that was fun, super yea for Mustache cat and for y’all to show him such love, now then the most wonderful office/studio HAS to be!!! lots of snake proofing, snake-a-way, very thick new ropes and all the advice of locals, I just know you can make it wonderfuler than it already is. Oh thanks for sharing all your great experiences – and OH GUESS WHAT!!! the teen guessing was a bit scary for me – hope it goes well for you. God bless.
I think if you start to move into the office, the snakes will vacate. They are actually scared of you, if you can believe that. And leave the door open for feral cat and he will probably de-snake the place for you! Love hearing your adventures.
Love your blog
I so look forward to your blogs!! Thank you !!
Go for the wash house/turned studio office….It will be LOVELY. The snakes will leave.
Rebekah – WOW, I can’t believe how awesome your old wash house is and what a great studio/office it will be. I am terribly afraid of snakes so I’d be a bit scared too! 🙂 But I agree with the above comment – when you move in, they will leave! And… Farmer Teal and Lucille? PERFECT!! 🙂 – Dori – (AKA: the new Ranch Farmgirl! Happy to be a part of your farm girl blogging group here on MaryJanesFarm!) 🙂
Absolutely love your wash house, I’m currently in the transition of moving to our 1st home/farm and I’m determined in taking the wash house that is here at my home place which will be sold within the next two years… very emotional yet exciting time. I just love the “old” feel of it and knowing that my grandparents and father hold a part in it’s history and being as they’re gone now it makes it even that much more special to me and gives me that much more determination as to finding a way in having it moved and becoming a part of the new chapter in my new life. So as to your dilemma about your S’s, I say just go for it! As long as you seal up all the cracks and crevices you’ll be fine 🙂
Guess what? If I had that wash house, I’d put a greenhouse on the front of it, and use it for a potting shed. Guess what else…you look like a little kid in the Farmer Teal outfit!!! LOL! Well, you do! Guess what else…I like long hair. Even on guys. But not that long. Dude looks like a lady…baa daaa bommm boommm..Dude looks looks like a lady (I’m singing-I’ll stop) Oh yeah, he looks like a lady from the back. Not the front…although some ladies…nevermind.
Cindy Bee
Rebekah, for some reason everytime I get a notice of your new post, when I go to it, it is the Suburban farm girl instead?? Just thought you might want to know. I actually went to the site and clicked on your logo to bring this up so I could send you a comment, this has happened the last 3 or 4 posts that you have posted.
Did you count foggy mornings in August for 2014? Saw your 2013 post and was just curious.
Thanks!